


Ketek of Choice

by MartineBishop



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Drabble, F/M, Post-Oathbringer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 06:03:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13541265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MartineBishop/pseuds/MartineBishop
Summary: After the fight for Thaylen City, Kaladin and Syl contemplate life.





	Ketek of Choice

“No“ Kaladin said. “Her choice is made. You can see it”

“Can I?” Syl answered, her eyes following Kaladin’s. Shallan had her arms looped around Adolin’s neck, a decidedly stupid look on her face. Adolin’s broad hands rested on her narrow hips, protectively. Syl put her head to one side and regarded the couple silently from the vantage point of Kaladin’s palm.

“You should think that as a Honorspren, I should understand love better” Syl mused.

Kaladin shrugged. “Is … there honor in love?” he asked haltingly. Was she straying into philosophy now? Was he? He felt far too battered and worn to discuss abstract concepts now.

“Shouldn’t there be? It feels like there should be. Otherwise – if the person loving has no honor – can it even be called love? Or is it simply lust, then, or obsession?”

“Syl…” Kaladin groaned and tipped his head back, leaning back on his palms.

“What! You started it, Kaladin” she pouted and flitted to his left shoulder. Her usual girlish dress changed to a formal havah during her flight in a blue shimmer, though without the safehand sleeve. She settled down into a sitting position, moving as though the dress obstructed her. Legs pressed together, balancing herself on his earlobe. As Syl lowered herself down more or less gracefully, Kaladin felt the faintest touch of her hand on his ear. Strange how quickly he had gotten used to the normal-sized, solid Syl in Shadesmar. Her weight had been an anchor for him in an alien world. Just like her spren-form was a constant point of focus for him in this one.

After a while, Syl flitted into Kaladin’s field of vision again and hovered before his eyes. “So?” she said and looked at him expectantly, making a slow pirouette in the air, trailing soft, blue-white light.

“So ... what?” he answered.

Syl let out a theatrical sigh. “So what do you think of my new dress?” she asked him, her words slow and deliberate as though she was talking to a particular stupid person.

“You have a new dress?” Kaladin replied. Adolin and Syl and their obsession with clothes! It’s a wonder she hadn’t chosen _him_ for her Windrunner!

“It’s a new style I saw in Urithiru!” she quipped and stemmed her hands into her hips. “I couldn’t wear it in Shadesmar, but I so wanted to show you…” and with that, she grew in size until she floated before Kaladin in roughly the same height she had in Shadesmar. Her dress, just like her faintly translucent skin and hair, still shimmered blue.

Kaladin blinked. “You can do that?” he asked her, dumfounded. He sat forward, staring at Syl. The only times he had _thought_ he had seen Syl as tall as a normal woman was during a highstorm. And even then he was never quite sure if his mind hadn’t simply played a trick on him.

“Huh” Syl said and looked down on herself. She seemed as surprised as Kaladin. “It seems I can. Neat”. She rotated on the tip of her foot, the skirt of her blue havah swirled around her like the leaves of a flower. It looked quite stunning.

“Well! Now that you can see every detail of the unrivaled beauty that is me – my dress?” Syl’s smile widened to a beaming grin and she lifted her chin.

Kaladin rolled his eyes. “It’s very nice” he said gruffly. “But you realize that I have no clue about fashion”.

Syl sighed and floated over to settle down next to Kaladin. She let her legs swing over the roof’s edge. It was quite unladylike, efficiently negating the effect of her formal dress. Kaladin felt a smile tug on the corners of his mouth.

“Here, give me your hand” he told Syl. He held out his upturned palm to her. She slipped her hand into his, translucent blue fingers settling on his wrist. He could feel her weight, though not as solid as it should be.

“I think it’s our bond” Syl mused. She cocked her head and studied their joined hands with interest. When she moved her fingers experimentally, they tickled Kaladin’s palm. “You haven’t said the Words yet, but you’re close. The higher the Ideal, the stronger the bond between human and spren. Plus, the aftereffect of Dalinar’s perpendicularity, I suppose…”.  

Kaladin closed his hand around Syl’s and let his arm drop, content with having her linked to him like this. She hummed softly, legs dangling, as she observed the battlefield. Kaladin followed her gaze, letting his eyes roam over the destroyed Thaylen City below. After a while, Syl let herself topple sideward to rest her head on Kaladin’s shoulder.

Her not-quite weight against his side and shoulder was reassuring in this devastated world. Despite the hard fight, nothing was over. But Syl was still with him, and that meant more to Kaladin than he cared to admit. He turned his head and placed an absent-minded kiss on Syl’s hair. She smelled of the spring winds, innocent and playful, a scent reminiscent of fresh grass and flowers. Kaladin rested his cheek on the top of her head, his eyes closed.

They sat like this for a while. It seemed that the world had come to a brief halt, if only for a few minutes. When had he last not rushed from fight to fight, from problems to obligations? Syl shifted against him, turning her head slightly. He moved to meet her, instinctively, and felt the brush of her lips at the corner of his mouth. The moment was neither startling nor awkward, only simple and wholesome. Kaladin pressed a light kiss on Syl’s lips in response. Syl began to hum again as she turned her head away to rest her cheek on his shoulder once more. Kaladin could feel the melody thrum in her body.

“ _Is_ there honor in love, Kaladin?” Syl murmured after a while, repeating his earlier question. She didn’t lift her head to look at him.  

“Don’t we fight for it?” Kaladin asked “The Knights Radiant, I mean. Isn’t it always love in the end that anyone ever fights for? The love for your brother, the love for your wife, your country, your people? Or even simply the love for an idea. You should think that as a Knight Radiant, I should understand love better”.

“But you do!” Syl told him emphatically and she lifted her head to look at him. Her brows were drawn. “Tien, your family. Dalinar, Bridge Four –“

“- and you” Kaladin added without a second thought.

A secret smile ghosted over Syl’s face and she studied him with a guarded look for a while. Then she suddenly threw her head back and declared: “Well, now that I can grow big at will, you should better watch out for my many, many suitors! Men and spren alike, I warn you”.

Kaladin moved his head to look her in the eye. He saw obvious mischief sparkle there but couldn’t bite back another comment: “And I bet Rock is quite on top of that list”.

Syl giggled lightly, moving away from him to clap her hands together. The sudden absence of her weight on him, of her palm in his, stung like a physical thing.

There still was a smile on Syl’s lips as she turned back to Kaladin, but her eyes were serious. “Sometimes you’re as thick as hard crem” she said softly. Kaladin felt her hand settle back on his, her thigh pressed against his own as she moved closer to him.

“So I don’t have to fight off lovesick men in your wake?” he asked her in a low voice.

“No, Kaladin” she said. “My choice is made. Can’t you see it?”  

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little dabble I came up with when I read Oathbringer. Now that Shallan chose Adolin, all bets are on again, I'd say ;).   
> I called the story a "ketek" (those haiku-like poems they write in the books) because of how Kaladin's (canon) lines at the beginning and Syl's revision of those words encircle the story. Didn't even mean to do that, it just sort of happend along the way.


End file.
